


Mind And Body

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-27
Updated: 2006-02-26
Packaged: 2018-08-15 23:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8077897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: When Reed discovers a mysterious device in a crashed alien ship, he gets more than he bargained for—much more.  (03/12/2004)





	1. CHAPTER 1 - Skeletons

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

CHAPTER 1 - Skeletons 

A chill breeze touched the back of her neck and whispered along her spine. Hoshi shivered, and took a tighter hold on the Universal Translator. Reed noticed the shiver, and said quietly, "Something wrong, Ensign?" 

She shook her head. 

Reed sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Bloody useless trip, really. We could have downloaded this computer database from Enterprise. We didn't need to come down and explore this thing." He waved a hand around, encompassing the crumbling walls, the gaping holes in the bulkheads, the vines creeping in over the computer consoles. 

"I doubt I would have gotten so much if we did it remotely," said Hoshi, nodding at the blinking access panels. "Besides, there are quite a few mentions of the Xindi. We can find something useful, I'm sure." 

He shook his head. "I still don't have to like it. Place feels like a graveyard." She followed his gaze to a crumbling skeleton, half covered by vines. Hoshi hadn't noticed it before, and she wished Reed hadn't drawn her attention to it. "No wonder the captain went back to the ship so quickly." 

"Leaves us to do the dirty work," said Hoshi wistfully. "Has he seemed a little, I don't know, off lately?" 

"I hate this Expanse," was Reed's reply. "The Captain, Trip, T'Pol... everyone seems off. We're all so determined all of a sudden. I never thought I'd miss the Captain's lax style, but this new bent-on-revenge vendetta is much worse." 

Hoshi nodded, and they were silent for a moment. 

"Well, this database should give some help," she said finally. "And then we're one step closer to finding the Xindi and getting home." 

"Good." Reed pushed away from the wall and walked aimlessly around the room, swinging his arms back and forth. He prodded the skeleton with his foot. 

"Don't do that, Lieutenant, please," said Hoshi, shuddering. Reed withdrew his foot and shrugged. 

"He's dead, anyway,' he said. "Been dead for a while. For once I manage to convince the captain to bring security and we don't even need it. At least you get to hack into something." He stood there for a moment, looking at the skeleton, while Hoshi looked at him, then furrowed his brow and cocked his head to the side. "What's this?" The leafy vines rustled as he swept them aside and crouched down, crawling right over the skeleton to get under the console. 

"Lieutenant! Get out of there!" cried Hoshi, running across the room after him. "You're crawling on a corpse, for goodness' sake!" She grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled. 

A muffled thump and a curse exploded from under the console; Reed slid out and glared petulantly at her. 

"Thank you for that bump," said Reed, brushing the leaves out of his hair and wincing. "I'll be sure to tell the good doctor where I acquired it, when he reprimands me for not being more careful on away missions for the thousandth time." He reached back in and pulled out a gleaming silver machine, two red lights blinking in unison on the top. Unlike everything else on the ship, it actually seemed to be in good repair, maybe even new- made. A thin black cord protruded from the side. Hoshi followed it with her eyes and shuddered again when she saw what it was attached to. 

"Wonder what this does," Reed said. He yanked down hard before Hoshi could protest. The skull flew off the skeleton, bounced towards Reed, and shattered into pieces as it ricocheted off the console. 

"Malcolm Reed!" cried Hoshi, mouth wide. The lieutenant just gazed at the shards of bone scattered over the floor and his lap, guiltily holding the cord up with a bit of skull still attached to the gently-swinging end. 

"Er... whoops," said Reed. Hoshi threw up her hands in disgust. 

"You get away from that poor person and don't touch anything!" she said, snapping her fingers. Reed opened his mouth; Hoshi glared at him and he snapped it shut, the protest dying on his lips. She checked the database download as he carefully sidled away from the now-headless pile of bones. "All right, we're done here. Let's go outside and tell Travis we're ready to be picked up." 

"You know, I thought I was the senior officer around here," muttered Reed, but he followed her meekly out into the steamy jungle, carefully clutching the silver machine in his hands. 

Not when you do stupid things, thought Hoshi in annoyance, but she didn't say it. She just tapped her communicator and said, "Ensign Sato to Enterprise." 

"We read you, ensign," came Archer's response. "Ready to come back?" 

"Yes, sir. I have the database and we're ready to go. I think Lieutenant Reed is, too. He seems a little bored, sir." 

"Well, Travis is on his way," Archer said. "Enterprise out." The communicator buzzed for a moment with static and then clicked off. 

"Come on, Ensign," said Reed, cradling his find in one arm and pointing with the other. "The landing site's over this way." She followed him through the forest, really looking forward to the controlled climate back on the ship as yet another giant insect buzzed around her ears. Great, just great, Hoshi thought in annoyance when they reached the clearing and the shuttlepod was nowhere in sight. She felt a headache coming on, and Reed wasn't helping since he kept fiddling with the infernal device. 

"What do you think this is?" said Reed. 

"There's still a piece of skull attached to that thing, Malcolm," said Hoshi. He pulled it off and tossed it over his shoulder. "It seems like some kind of recording device, don't you think? I think I might be able to figure out how it works. It looks similar to a Vulcan recorder we used back on Earth for weapons testing." He dug under the edge of the side panel with his fingernails and neatly popped it off. "I think I might be able to get it to work. Maybe the person recorded what happened to the ship." 

"We know what happened to the ship," said Hoshi. "It crashed. The pilot died." 

The lieutenant looked up at her in genuine surprise. "What's the matter with you?" asked Reed. "You've been edge the entire time. Usually I'm the one who's tense." 

"I'm not too fond of dead bodies," said Hoshi. "That's all. I just want to get off this planet." The whine of the shuttlepod interrupted her at that moment, and she sighed with relief. Reed gave her a tentative smile. 

"Find anything interesting?" said Travis as the two officers climbed aboard. "Just the database," Reed said. "And this." He held up the mysterious device and tapped the top meaningfully. "I don't know what it is yet." 

"Sounds like you had a good time," said Travis. 

"Bloody wonderful. The ship was a tomb." 

"Malcolm beheaded a dead body," said Hoshi with a perfectly straight face, feeling better as the ground fell away below them. She smiled sweetly at the lieutenant as Travis gave him an incredulous look. "Why don't you explain, Lieutenant?" It was all worth it, watching his face turn beet-red. Hoshi leaned back against the seat. Her eyes fell on the device Reed still held in his hands. For some reason, it made her nervous, even without the shard of bone hanging from the cord. Oh well. Reed would take it to pieces once they got back to the ship, and she wouldn't need to deal with the gruesome reminder of that skeleton again. 

Pushing it to the back of her mind, she smiled at Reed's attempts to explain her remark to Travis, took out her PADD, and began to study the alien database. 

Malcolm Reed glared at the little silver machine, wondering exactly what it was. He didn't want to excessively poke around inside it but he couldn't see any other way to try and find out what the damn thing did. He'd found the power source, but that didn't help much since it seemed to be working just fine. Then he'd tried interfacing it with the ship's computers, which had been less than helpful since he couldn't figure out what should go where. 

The best thing to do right now was probably give up and go to bed, since the person who it had been attached to obviously could afford to wait another day, but he hated leaving a problem unsolved. This might be someone's last will and testament, or a dying plea for help... It could be anything at all, and Reed, mindful of his own experiences on Shuttlepod One, felt that whatever this person had to say should be heard. 

Of course, he wasn't entirely sure it was a recording device, either, which didn't help. He yawned and stretched, feeling the bones in his spine crack as he twisted around. Maybe it was time to call it a night. He looked at the clock. 2100 hours. Late enough to go to bed, especially since Archer had found some information in the alien database that looked promising. The captain had set a course at once for some planet two days away; Reed couldn't remember its name because the only one able to pronounce it had been Ensign Sato. 

"Bloody thing," he said out loud, and gave it a half-hearted thump as he got out of the chair. 

To his very great surprise, the silver sides of the machine lit up like firecrackers. A low hum buzzed out from it, filling the room until Reed couldn't stand the vibrations anymore. He pawed at it clumsily with an elbow, trying to shield his ears with his hands at the same time. 

Suddenly the buzz stopped, leaving Reed with a curious ring in his ears. Cautiously, he took his hands away from his head and poked the machine with a curious finger. A brilliant light shot out of a tiny lens on the top of the machine and coalesced into a shimmering swirl and finally the figure of a more or less humanoid alien. 

Reed gaped and grasped for a phase pistol as the glowing figure looked up, down, and around the armory, finally settling its gaze on the flabbergasted armory officer in front of it. "Yn'tok lek tanu?" it asked. "Akal, ya, akal uha mela sita M'yah!" 

"I am Lieutenant Reed. You are presently on the Starfleet vessel Enterprise," gasped Malcolm and then wondered why he was talking to a holographic projection. This was really more of a Hoshi-type thing. He edged toward the comm on the wall, but the figure help up a warning hand and the holographic display blazed brighter around him. Reed stopped in his tracks, startled. 

"Akal, ya! Si tabas manat jokarra," said the figure sternly, waving an imperious hand at Reed. 

"Do you understand me?" said Reed helplessly. "Are you sentient? Or are you just a computer program?" 

The figure shimmered again, turning blue instead of yellowy-gold, and nodded at him. Sparks flew from the machine into the ship computers, sending twinkling ribbons of color over all the displays. Reed took a step toward the comm again. The figure scowled at him. The computer screens flickered, and Reed stopped, not knowing what power this thing had. 

All of a sudden the sparkling lines sucked themselves back into the little silver device. 

The figure shimmered again and then resolved itself into arather attractive human form that looked somewhat familiar to Reed, though he couldn't figure out why. Trying to puzzle this out, he nearly missed the thing's next words. 

"I am not a computer program, Lieutenant Reed," said the hologram. "I am a Halparen. I have transferred my consciousness into this storage device because my material body could no longer support my life functions. 

Reed nodded slowly, then did a double-take---transferred consciousness? What the hell? He strove around to find something intelligent to say, anything at all. 

"What the hell?" 

Damn. 

What did one say to a transferred consciousness? He stuttered something out that gradually resolved itself into, "What on earth are you?" 

"I am not familiar with this usage. Your translation matrix does not include it," said the figure. "Please restate your query." 

Reed opened his mouth to say something, shut it again, decided he was really not cut out for first contact situations, opened his mouth again, gave up any hope at understanding the situation, and said weakly, "Welcome to Enterprise."


	2. CHAPTER 2 - Uneasiness

CHAPTER 2 - Uneasiness 

"Now why exactly did Malcolm need us all to come to the armory right now? It's almost third shift. What's he still doing in the armory?" asked Archer, striding purposefully through the halls with T'Pol and Hoshi hurrying in his wake. At least, Hoshi was hurrying; T'Pol, ever dignified, merely stalked along with a greater speed than usual. 

"Mr. Reed insisted that he had made first contact with an alien being," said T'Pol. "I felt such a situation required your presence, Captain." 

"And explain to me how he made first contact in the ARMOURY?" growled Archer, jabbing at the turbolift buttons. The doors slid shut with a whoosh, and they began to descend. 

"He was unclear. He made reference to a device and a holographic projection, but he did not explain fully. He insisted we report to the armory as soon as possible." 

"A device?" said Hoshi. "He picked up an alien device from the planet we went to yesterday. It was attached to a skull but he took it anyway. It wasn't projecting any holograms or anything, though." 

Both the captain and the subcommander raised an eyebrow at her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it amused her to see how much the captain had picked up on T'Pol's mannerisms, but now was not the time to comment. That damnable machine! She knew it would be trouble. 

"Well, he can explain it right now," Archer finally said, stepping through the turbolift doors before they opened all the way. T'Pol gave Hoshi a glance and followed. Hoshi sighed and ran after them. 

Reed had left the doors to the armory open. His voice echoed down the hall, occasionally punctuated by an oddly flat, mechanical response. Hoshi's sensitive ears caught the words, "Your ship was rusted to pieces. We couldn't have salvaged it for anything but scrap metal." 

"What is your estimation of the length of time my ship had been there?" said the oddly timbred voice. 

"I'd say at least ten years, probably more like twenty or thirty---," said Reed. He broke off in midsentence as the captain, T'Pol, and Hoshi came through the armory door, spinning around and snapping to attention. "Captain! Subcommander! Ensign!" 

Archer goggled at the apparition on the console before them. Hoshi would have laughed at his obvious amazement, but she was too busy being amazed herself at the glowing figure standing hazily in midair. 

"May I introduce Jolas, of the planet Halpar," said Reed stiffly, holding up a hand to the gleaming apparition. It---he?---bowed elegantly. 

"I am most honored to be on your ship," said Jolas as he stood up. His face disturbed Hoshi, although she could not figure out why. It looked somewhat familiar; it was quite obviously human, but wrong somehow. 

"I'm Captain Archer. This is Subcommander T'Pol, my second-in-command, and Ensign Sato, my communications officer," said Archer, recovering himself. "Although it doesn't seem that we are in need of her services, from the looks of things." 

"No. I was able to access your computer database and your translation matrices," said Jolas. Both men looked distinctly unsettled at this declaration; Reed embarrassed, Archer surprised. Hoshi set her padd down and stepped up to the alien. 

"Can you explain how you did that?" she asked sweetly, smiling to reassure the alien. 

"Your language does not include terminology to fully explain," Jolas said. "It may be comparable to extending one's consciousness out of one's body. Does your species possess telepathy?" 

"Humans do not. My species, the Vulcans, do possess rudimentary telepathic abilities," T'Pol said unexpectedly. "I do not fully understand what you mean but I believe I do comprehend somewhat." 

"We also possess telepathy," said Jolas. "This machine limits it to computer impulses but in our natural forms we are able to read synaptic impulses in the minds of others, both Halparen and other species." 

"We do not read the minds of others," said T'Pol, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Captain, I do not feel my presence is necessary. Permission to be excused." 

Archer gave her a curious look but nodded, and the Vulcan turned on her heel, sweeping out of the armory. "I did not mean to offend," said Jolas. 

"I gather that telepathy is a bit of a sensitive subject," said Reed brusquely. Jolas nodded at him. 

"Lieutenant Reed and I were speaking of my ship's condition when you arrived," he said, turning to Hoshi. "You were also on my ship for a time. What is your estimation of its condition?" 

His eyes, glowing golden, sent a shiver up Hoshi's spine. The skeleton in the ship danced in her mind---it must be Jolas, she knew. Talking to someone who should be all rights be dead unnerved her beyond measure. She and Malcolm would definitely have to have a talk about picking up things attached to dead bodies. "I doubt we could do anything to fix it," she said. "The computers were intact but the engines and everything that would make it actually work was completely destroyed in the crash. There--- there was a body, too." She snuck a glance at Malcolm, raising an eyebrow. His cheeks flushed red and he mouthed the word 'sorry' at her. 

Don't say sorry to me, thought Hoshi. It's not my corpse, it's this thing's. 

"My corporeal remains," said Jolas matter-of-factly. "The computer cores are active?" 

"Yes," said Hoshi. "At least, most of them. We downloaded all the information we could find into our database." 

"Excellent. I shall review them and present you with specifications for a cloning facility and a genome to create a new body for myself." 

"Hold on just a second," said Archer, stepping forward. "Why should we help you? We don't even know what you are. Or how you got in that thing." 

"I will share all the technology required with your doctor. This will be beneficial for you, captain. Our medical expertise is superior to yours." 

"I'll think about it," said Archer. 

Jolas frowned. "I would appreciate a prompt decision," he said. "I understand your concerns, though. You have no comparable abilities. This must seem very strange to you." 

Damn right it does, thought Hoshi. She and Malcolm REALLY needed to have a talk. No touching dead bodies, ever. Next target practice, that's what they'd do. Sit down and have a talk about dead bodies. Great. 

She realized too late she was glaring at him; he returned the look with a querulous glance. Archer, not noticing the exchange, patted Reed on the shoulder. "I'll trust you to see to whatever our visitor may need in the way of amenities," he said. "I will consider your request," he added to the alien, "and give you an answer tomorrow." With that he left the armory, both officers staring after him. 

"Well," said Hoshi finally. "He's usually more interested in visitors." 

"It is getting late," said Malcolm. "It's nearly 2300." 

"Still..." 

Reed gave a her a look that plainly said, not in front of the alien, and turned back to Jolas. "Do you need anything?" 

"My thought-saver is sufficiently equipped to support my thought processes," said Jolas. "If it is your resting time I will rest as well. Tap the side if you require my presence." The hologram shimmered and then, like water spiraling down a whirlpool, sucked itself back into the little silver box. 

"It was a kind of recorder," said Reed in amazement. "I was right." 

"I don't think this is exactly the same type of thing," said Hoshi. 

Reed shrugged. "I want to go back down to that ship. Maybe there were more people and they did the same thing." 

"We went through the whole ship, Malcolm. It wasn't that big. We would have seen anything. He was probably the only one on board." 

"I wonder where the rest of the Halparens are?" said Reed. 

"Is that the name of his species?" 

He nodded, stroking his chin idly. "Maybe there's some family member or something left. We should take him back there." 

"He's been there a long time, Malcolm," warned Hoshi. "Longer than you said. Thirty years? Forty years? It's more than that. Definitely more. We should carbon-date the body. And anyway, did you see that ship? It was pitted and worn on the outside, and scans showed the material was a high-grade ceramic. It takes a long, long time to do anything to material like that." 

"I know," said Reed, cheeks flushing slightly. "I didn't think of it, though. How do you know that?" 

"I'm not entirely limited to knowledge within the linguistics field," said Hoshi. "Besides, hang around Trip long enough, you pick up stuff. And I heard him talking about this ship earlier." She grinned. "Come on, Lieutenant. We need to have a talk about you and dead bodies and shattering their skulls. Mess Hall for a nearly-midnight snack?" 

Reed cocked an eyebrow at her in such a good imitation of T'Pol that Hoshi couldn't help but burst out laughing. "It was an accident, Ensign," he said, doing a pretty good imitation of the Subcommander's voice as well. He couldn't keep a straight face, though, and grinned hugely at the still-giggling ensign. "That's insubordination. Tell anyone and I'll put you on sanitation duty for a week." He picked up the silver thought-saver and deposited it inside a tool case, then snapped the lid shut and locked it. "Just in case. You'll enjoy sanitation, Hoshi. Maybe you'll stay there permanently!" 

"Oh, yes, and I suppose Crewman Marsell the sanitation engineer will man the Universal Translator? When you get blown up it won't be my fault." They left the armory, bantering back and forth between them. Reed ordered the computer to turn off the lights as the door hissed shut behind them. 

Neither of them saw the tendrils of golden light creep from the tool case, across the floor, and up into the computer console. Neither saw the screens flicker through pages and pages of ship schematics and crew personnel, or records of their travels and information about Earth and Vulcan. 

Neither of them came back that night, so the golden light sparkled in the darkness for hours, reading everything in Enterprise's database at high speed, flipping from subject to subject so quickly that a human eye would have seen only a fluttering blur of pictures and words. 

All night it sparkled, but when the first crewman came in the morning, the armory was as quiet and still as always, nothing different at all.


	3. CHAPTER 3 - Intersections

CHAPTER 3 - Intersections 

"Well," said Hoshi, "we don't have to tell him that the captain decided not to waste our resources this far into the Expanse. We just don't wake him up." 

"That's hardly fair, Ensign," said Reed, tapping his fingers sharply on the console. "He's been in that thing for who knows how long." 

"Three hundred and forty-seven years," said Hoshi. "In Terran time anyway." 

"You carbon-dated the body?" 

She nodded, fiddling with the padd in her hands. Malcolm sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it mussed and standing on end. "Great," he said. "So we thought it unlikely that any of his family would still be around if he'd only been there for a few decades.... It's pretty much an impossibility now, though, isn't it?" 

"Well, they could be a longer-lived race than us, of course," said Hoshi quietly. 

"They could, I suppose," Reed murmured. "Still...." 

"He's been in there for a very long time," said Hoshi. "And I doubt that he's actually aware of anything in there. If we just---held on to the box---maybe...." 

Reed shook his head. "Like I said, Ensign, that's hardly fair. At least the captain is willing to let him try and find his planet on our charts. We can drop him off on the way or try to contact his people, at least." 

"Are you so sure that anyone will respond after three hundred years? That anyone will want him back?" said Hoshi, looking down at the tool case. Too small for a human to fit inside, but a coffin nonetheless. She shivered and closed her eyes. "What a horrible thing, to be stuck inside a little machine for centuries. Like being dead, only not really dead, and then you wake up and all you can do is be a hologram, unable to touch anything or do anything at all." 

Reed goggled at her, surprised by the ice in her tone. "Are you all right, Hoshi?" he asked. 

"I think it might be better to leave him there," said Hoshi. "Not wake him up. Just put him back on that planet and leave him. He won't know anything until someone else finds that box and taps on it." 

The armory officer glared at her, black eyes locking with blue for a moment, flashing fire and ice. "Ensign, I am not going to leave Jolas trapped inside that box," he said, flipping open the lid on the tool kit. Ignoring her scowl he gave the slim silver machine inside a sharp whack, and stepped back as the familiar golden swirl of light whooshed into the air. 

"Ah....Lieutenant Reed," said Jolas, smiling pleasantly. "And the beautiful Ensign Sato. Has your captain come to a decision then?" 

"He has," said Reed. Hoshi turned away from the hologram and gazed down at the floor, mouth set in a grim line. "Captain Archer has decided that we are unable at this time to spare the resources to, er, create your new body for you. We are, however, willing to let you examine our star charts and try to find your planet, or send out a message to attempt to contact your species." 

"I see," said Jolas. The hologram's expression did not change, showing only the fairly pleasant complacency that had been present on the alien's face all along. "And are we still orbiting the planet on which you discovered my ship?" 

"Only for another few hours," said Reed. "Why?" 

"I wish to recover some supplies from my ship," replied the hologram. "A few things essential to the maintenance of the thought-saver. At rest it conserves power, but the supply is lower than I had thought previously. A---what is the word?---ah, yes, a battery. And a few tools, which I will instruct you in the use of in order to keep my thought-saver maintained and in good order." 

"I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange that," said Reed slowly. 

"Thank you," said Jolas. "Pick up the thought-saver. The hologram will adjust itself." Gingerly Reed touched the surface, drawing back as the display flickered. "Go on," Jolas urged. 

Hoshi watched, uneasy for some reason, as Reed picked it up between a thumb and forefinger. Jolas' figure shimmered and disappeared, then reformed, as shining and golden as before, but now as tall as Reed. They stood together, Reed looking the alien up and down. "Well.... That's interesting." 

"Lead the way, Lieutenant Reed," said Jolas, gesturing elegantly toward the armory door. Reed glanced at Hoshi and walked out, the hologram gliding in his wake. Hoshi gritted her teeth. She couldn't understand quite why this alien angered her so---or why Reed did. 

"There," said Reed, clicking the last of the attachments into place. The paranoid conscience within him did not like putting strange machines together without knowing what they did. But the compassionate side of his mind, the side that empathized with Jolas' plight---until now, somewhat suppressed for the good of his job---felt that it was the right thing to do. 

"Thank you," said the hologram, standing over his shoulder. "That will serve to keep the thought-saver for a few hundred years more." 

Reed, not expecting this, dropped the heavy tool in his hand right onto his toes and swore loudly. "We will not leave you in there for a few hundred years," said the lieutenant without meeting the hologram's eyes. 

"You did not tell me how long I was here." 

"Well, at first we didn't know." 

"I have refigured your time frame to match my own," said Jolas sadly. "Seven hundred cycles. It seems my people are not as long-lived as your own, despite what I had thought at first. Seven hundred cycles is a very long time on my world." 

The question was on the tip of his tongue---how do you know how long a human lives?---but Reed did not ask. He supposed Jolas must have found that answer when he downloaded their translation matrices. 

And that made Reed even more nervous, but he did not fully understand why. The thought reverberated around his head but refused to settle down and let him comprehend it. "I am sorry," said Reed. "I would like to help you. The captain will not let me, though, and I can't disobey his orders." 

"I understand, Lieutenant," said Jolas. "I have all I need here. Let us return to your ship. I will attempt to compose a message to send out." 

Reed nodded and picked up the thought-saver with some difficulty. The pieces he had just attached were sharp and pointed and stuck out at odd angles, making it hard to get a good grip on the little silver box. "What are all these things, anyway?" 

"I would have to explain the entire process of personality transference in order for you to understand," Jolas replied. "And since I believe you have a limited amount of time on this planet, it would be best left until later." 

"Er....right," Reed said. He gingerly passed the thought-saver back and forth from hand to hand. "Anything else you need while we're down here?" 

The hologram looked around at the ruined ship, stroking his chin in an oddly human gesture that Reed found disconcerting. Of course, he admitted to himself, he found the whole thing disconcerting---but a good deal of that was because he was really, really hoping Jolas didn't ask what had happened to his skull. 

"I have a few personal items here," said Jolas. "I would be gratified if you would take them as well." The hologram shimmered out and reappeared next to one of the bulkhead compartments. "In here." 

Reed pulled the drawer open, grunting as the rusty hinges screeched in protest. He lifted out a small glass cube with a white spot on the top and several cloth-bound books with metal clasps to hold them shut. "Press the white spot," said Jolas. 

When Reed touched his thumb to the smooth surface, the cube lit up from the inside, displaying in holographic form above it a group of people with facial features similar to Jolas' own, or at least the ones he had first worn before adapting a more human appearance. The alien's expression saddened as he gazed at the little holograms, all smiling and nodding their heads. 

"My family," said the Halparen, a tinge of sorrow in his voice. "They may be still alive, but I doubt I would recognize them. They will be much-changed from when I knew them." 

"How would they be still alive?" asked Reed quizzically. "You said your people lived shorter lives than humans." 

Jolas pointed at the thought-saver, one glowing golden finger passing right through it. "We do not die, Lieutenant Reed. When our bodies are used up we create a new one, of course. A clone, or sometimes an android form, depending on preference. We can survive for thousands and thousands of cycles." He looked at the tiny holographic photo again. "But as I said before, seven hundred-odd cycles is still a very long time. My family will be very different. My world will be very different. And of course, many of us do choose to pass into the next life eventually, so some of my family may no longer be alive at all." 

"But for you, it's like it's still several hundred years ago. You don't know anything that's happened," Reed said. 

"Exactly. It is as if I have traveled into the future," Jolas replied. "Things are different. Very different." 

"I'm sorry," said Reed, silently wondering if that body in the corner was Jolas' own or a clone. 

"Don't be sorry," Jolas told him. "If you had not awoken me, many more years could have passed. Or no one may have awoken me at all, and I would simply have slept for all eternity." 

"Death, more or less. But of course, with the chance to come back from it," said Reed, shuddering at the thought. "That's more of a chance than most anyone else ever gets." He checked his watch. "We're due back at the landing site in about ten minutes. Is there anything else you need?" 

"There is nothing else I require," Jolas said. "Let time take the ship and myself, and perhaps I will find my people. There is another thing to worry about---we are wanderers at heart, and it may be that none of us are left in this part of the galaxy." 

"Well, we'll do our best to help you," said Reed firmly. 

"And I will aid you, if I can," said Jolas. 

Reed nodded, and picked up the thought-saver again. "Let's go," he said. Jolas cast one last look at the ship, golden light flickering, as Reed clambered out into the jungle. The ship creaked behind them, vines fluttering in the breeze, letting the wild claim it for good. 

Back in the armory that night, the golden light flickered out and into the computer circuits once more, spreading through every available system with quiet elegance. No alarms went off, no alerts were triggered; every firewall fell under the gentle invasion. 

And this time, the light found more than mere information. Wires sprouted from the silver box, integrating themselves seamlessly into the well-oiled systems of the great starship. The bridge still held control, to all appearances---but it was a mere illusion. 

When the invasion was complete, at any moment, whenever he desired it, every single one of Enterprise's systems would fall under the iron control of Jolas. No human hand could retake them. 

It was only a matter of time.


	4. CHAPTER 4 - Insinuation

CHAPTER 4 - Insinuation 

Reed's mind refused to give him any peace that night. Thoughts of the decrepit alien ship, now many light-years behind them, fluttered around his mind. He dozed, not quite asleep and not quite awake, dreams of the wind and rain battering at the bulkheads and the vines growing up and up. He saw himself prone on the floor, skin and hair rotting, shrinking around his bones and finally rotting away altogether. 

The silver walls kept him confined, kept him absolutely motionless.... he knew he was alive and aware, but still he drifted in and out, time passing him by in great chunks. Sometimes it moved so slowly that he could see the vines themselves growing up and over the crumbling consoles, and sometimes decades passed in an instant, so that he awoke once more and saw the seasons and the forest changed entirely. 

And then something new, someone new---someone touching the thought-saver, speaking, but he could not answer.... Reed bolted awake in a cold sweat, his blankets twisted around his legs and his pillow crushed against the wall. "Too much time with Jolas," he whispered, mouth dry. He flipped the lights on, looking at the clock. Only a few hours until he was due for a shift---he might as well get up anyway. 

Standing in the shower, face lifted to the steaming water, he heard the comm beep loudly. Cursing, he fumbled for a towel, couldn't find one, and simply ran towards the wall unit. Bless the person who didn't include video on this comm, he said silently and pressed the button. "Reed here." 

"Sorry to wake you, Lieutenant, but I need you to report to Sub-commander T'Pol's quarters right away," came the captain's voice, gravelly over the intercom. 

"Aye, sir. I'll be there in a few minutes. Reed out." 

What in bloody blazes could the captain need him for in T'Pol's quarters this time of night? Quickly Reed dried off and pulled on a T-shirt and sweatpants, deciding that the summons sounded too urgent to bother with his entire uniform. He jogged through the halls, running a hand quickly through his wet hair to straighten it and got the opposite effect since it simply stuck up on end. 

The captain, in pajamas himself, was standing with the fourth shift security crewman outside T'Pol's quarters, speaking in low, urgent tones. Archer glanced up as he heard Reed's bare feet padding against the deck plating. 

"You didn't need to take a shower, Lieutenant," said the captain, looking slightly puzzled. 

"Er, you called when I was in the middle of one, sir," Reed replied, flustered. "What's the problem?" 

"About twenty minutes ago, Sub-commander T'Pol summoned security to her quarters, claiming an intruder alert," said Crewman Philips. "She sounded rather agitated. Or very agitated, considering she's Vulcan," he added in an undertone. 

"Intruder alert? Did you find anyone?" Reed said, staring at T'Pol's open door. 

"No, sir," said Philips. "We arrived and the Sub-commander was unconscious on the floor. There were no signs of a struggle and no visible injuries. She was simply.... unconscious. She wasn't even splayed out or anything, just lying there completely straight." 

Reed stepped into the room, flicking the dimmed lights to normal ambience. Vulcan candles, some ceremonial decorations on the walls, nothing askew or out-of-place as far as he could tell. The sheets on the bed, wrinkled as if T'Pol had thrown them aside, were the only things not neatly in their place. "No sign of anything happening. Is T'Pol in Sickbay?" 

"Phlox is examining her now," said Archer, stepping into the room beside him. 

"I want to check the recordings of the transmission," Reed said, crossing the room to T'Pol's computer interface. Quickly he pulled up the intership logs, glad that he had managed to convince the captain to allow him to temporarily record all communications in case of emergency. It had taken several weeks into the Expanse, added with Reed's continual reminders of the various Suliban attacks, to bring Archer around to the idea. 

"T'Pol to Security," came the Vulcan's voice over the speakers. Philips was right; she did sound rather agitated. Still firm and commanding, her tone nonetheless held none of the usual cool reserve. Urgency---and fear?---colored her words. Reed did not like it one bit. "Intruder alert. Security to my quarters immediately---" It cut off without warning and Reed tapped at the computer for an instant, wondering where the rest of the message was, before he realized T'Pol herself had been cut off. He wished he had been able to convince the captain of the necessity of installing recording cameras in all quarters, but so far Archer had blatantly refused. 

The captain, arms crossed over his chest, was staring at the walls as if he expected some mysterious alien to come leaping out of them. "Could this have anything to do with your visitor in the armory, Lieutenant?" said Archer. 

Reed had not considered this possibility. He thought for a moment, but shook his head. "He can't actually interact with anything," Reed said. "He's an intangible hologram. I don't know how he would have even gotten to her quarters. Someone has to carry the thought-saver for him to move around at all." 

"Well, just a possibility. They didn't hit it off well," said Archer slowly. 

"No, they didn't, but I don't know how he would have done something like this." 

"Well, see if you can find anything," said Archer. "I'm going to Sickbay. I'll see if Phlox can wake her up, or tell us any clues that might enlighten this little mystery." His words, casual though they were, still held a great deal of concern. Reed nodded to his captain as Archer strode out of the room, and then beckoned Philips over. 

"Let's get to work," he told the crewman, although Reed had to admit, he had no idea where to start. Invisible intruders, unconscious Vulcans---it didn't sit right with him. 

Not right at all. 

Hoshi idly twisted a hair tie around her fingers, listening to the quiet snap. The science station stood conspicuously empty to her right; across the bridge, the armory station was also unoccupied. Mayweather sat at the pilot's station, but had abandoned any pretense of interest in his work, leaning his head on one elbow and making minute course corrections with the other every quarter of an hour or so. 

Archer had been in and out of the bridge all morning, as had Reed and Trip, but none of them stayed for very long. T'Pol, of course, was still in Sickbay, not having woken up yet. Hoshi had heard the captain's brief report to the entire ship just as she'd gotten out of bed that morning and didn't like it one bit. 

Mysterious intruders that no one could find---Hoshi did not like intruders even when they were nicely tangible and easily located. The hair tie in her fingers suddenly snapped and flew across the bridge, hitting the unsuspecting Mayweather right in the ear. Startled, he leapt up and glared around. "What the hell was that?" he said, and then obviously remembered where he was and sat down with a reddening face. The security crewman at tactical snickered. 

"Sorry," said Hoshi meekly. "Bored." 

"You've been hanging around the Lieutenant too much, if you think shooting people with things is a good boredom reliever," Travis retorted. 

"No, I was playing with it because I was bored and I snapped it by accident," Hoshi told him. The ensign nodded back at her, apparently mollified. 

"Freaky stuff going on around here," he said. 

"Yeah," Hoshi agreed. They fell silent again for a few moments, neither knowing quite how to address the situation. Hoshi sighed and stared at the stars streaking across the view screen until the incoming transmission alert began to blink on her console. 

Expecting a Starfleet command call, or something else equally routine, she was quite surprised to find a golden-skinned Halparen on the screen. The communication was prerecorded, but they had obviously responded to the message that she had been sending out since yesterday. 

She saved the message and ran it through the UT, checking the automatic outgoing message while she waited for the new one to translate. Hoshi got another surprise when she discovered that not only was her original message no longer transmitting, it was not even in the database any longer. "Weird," she muttered. The console beeped. 

Quickly she read over the new message, furrowing her brow in confusion. "What's the matter?" Travis asked, startling her. 

"I think I need to talk to the captain," said Hoshi. 

"Bad news?" 

"Uh.... you could say that. It's about that alien that Malcolm found." Hoshi scrabbled around her station for a padd to copy the message. Mayweather watched her with a concerned look on his face. When she stopped dead with the padd in her hands, staring at her console with a look of utter bemusement, he stood up in a hurry. 

"It's gone!" Hoshi said. 

"What?" 

"The message.... It's totally erased from the database!" 

"How does that happen?" 

"It doesn't!" cried Hoshi. "It was right here!" 

"Well, maybe you've been sitting here for too long, Hoshi," said Mayweather kindly. "You looked like you were nodding off for a while there...." She glared at him; he put up his hands in defense. "Well, maybe you should take a break." 

Hoshi glared at him again, but nodded. "Maybe I should," she said, stepping up from her station and coming down to stand next to him. "Travis, where are we going?" she said, staring at the helm in confusion. 

He threw her a puzzled look, but took his station again. "Bearing for sector eight-two-mark seven," he said. "That supply station that's supposedly used by a lot of Xindi. Just like the captain ordered." 

"Just wondered," said Hoshi, backing away from the helm and practically running for the doors, ignoring the looks that Mayweather and the armory crewman gave her. She had to find Malcolm. 

Something very, very strange was going on here, she knew. Two messages disappearing, and Mayweather's heading coordinates---though he had been looking right at them, the coordinates displayed on the console were in almost the opposite direction and most definitely NOT the ones that he had read off to her. 

And Jolas was.... Hoshi stopped in the corridor. What was the matter with Jolas? The message said---the message.... She shook her head violently, trying to dispel the sudden fuzziness. Jolas---well, she couldn't remember right now, but something was wrong about Jolas. The message had warned them---the Halparens had said---what? She swore out loud and smacked the wall with her fist. Better not say anything until she remembered, Hoshi decided. Those coordinates, now.... that was a completely different matter. She knew she had seen THOSE. 

She found Reed in the armory, reading a padd with a furrowed expression on his face. The thought-saver lay near the console. Hoshi did a double take when she looked at it; a mass of slender silver wires protruded from it, reaching up to the computer controls and right into the circuits. She glanced quickly at Reed, wondering why he was allowing this, but when she looked back at the thought-saver the wires had disappeared. 

"Ensign?" Reed said, standing up. Hoshi gazed at the thought-saver for a moment longer and couldn't figure out why she felt so alarmed. Something was wrong, but she couldn't think what it was. With an effort she brought her thoughts back to the coordinates she had seen on Travis' station. 

"I need to talk to you," said Hoshi quietly, casting an apprehensive look at the little silver box. Again she had a fleeting impression of something not quite right about it, but she couldn't put her finger on it. 

"If this is about skulls again....," said Reed in exasperation. 

"No. It's not," Hoshi said. "And actually, I would appreciate if we went somewhere other than the armory to talk about this." She meant, somewhere else than the thought-saver, but realized too late how it sounded. 

"Er....all right," Reed said, putting the padd down. Hoshi led him out of the armory to one of the workstations in the corridors. 

"Okay," she said. "Now access helm info. What is our heading?" 

"Eight-two-mark seven," said Reed. "Why?" 

Hoshi stared at him. "It's right there," she said. "We're going in a completely different direction! Look!" She pushed him out of the way and reloaded the helm information. There were the coordinates--- 

"Hoshi?" said Reed, and she started, realizing suddenly that she had been staring blankly into space. She looked down at the console and wondered why she had thought they were wrong. Eight-two-mark-seven, there it was, right there. "Are you all right?" Reed said, taking her hands gently in his own. 

"I---I thought we were going the other way," said Hoshi. She remembered thinking it, but she couldn't remember why. 

"Are you sure you're all right? I can take you to Sickbay." 

"No.... I'm okay," she said, brushing him off. "I guess I haven't been getting enough sleep, or something. I think maybe I should get back to the bridge now." Still uneasy, but not sure why, she nodded to Reed and headed back towards the bridge. 

Reed stood in the corridor and watched her go, musing that he would never, ever understand women, Hoshi in particular. He looked at the helm info on the computer console again, shut off the station, and headed back to the armory and his update of the targeting systems. Looking at the little silver box, he tapped on the top of it and smiled in greeting as the golden alien whooshed into being. 

"Good day, Lieutenant Reed," said Jolas pleasantly. "How are you doing today?" 

"Having a fairly uneventful one, actually," said Reed. "Other than Sub-Commander T'Pol getting mysteriously ill, nothing has really happened." 

"The Sub-commander is ill? A pity," said Jolas. "What is the problem?" 

"Well, the doctor is trying to figure it out," said Reed. "She collapsed. She was unconscious.... they found her this morning." Something niggled at the back of his mind, his instincts telling him that something sounded wrong about that, but he couldn't focus the thought. "No one else has been affected." 

"How very curious," said Jolas, shaking his head. "If you see her, please give her my well-wishes." 

"I'll do that," said Reed. He went back to working on the targeting scanners, chatting idly with Jolas about the weapons systems on the alien's ship and the Xindi, who Jolas remembered from his own time. After a while the lingering sensation that something was awry dissipated and he gave it no further thought. 

Really, it was quite an uneventful day.


	5. CHAPTER 5 - Ill Intents

CHAPTER 5 - Ill Intents 

"I don't understand it," said Dr. Phlox, staring down at his patient with a baffled look on his face. "Scans show nothing at all wrong. And her brainwave patterns behave as if she were awake." 

"Yet there she lies," said Hoshi, shaking her head. She sat perched on the other biobed, leaning her head on her hands. "There is something very funny going on around here, Doctor." 

"I agree," said Phlox, sorting through the items on the counter until he found a medical scanner. "Now, you said you've been feeling odd?" 

"I think I'm just not getting enough sleep, or something," replied the ensign as Phlox ran the scanner over her head. "Odd things have been happening all day but when I think back on it, really it's just me being strange." 

"Well, Ensign, you do seem a little tired, but beyond that nothing seems to be wrong. I can give you a sleep aid if you like. I would suggest getting some rest. When is your next shift?" 

"Tomorrow morning. I'm done for the day," she told him, taking the pills he gave her. 

"Go get some food and then go to bed, Ensign," he said. "And if you don't feel better tomorrow come see me again." 

"Will do, Doctor, thank you," Hoshi said, hopping off the bed. She nodded to him, cast a last sympathetic look at the still and silent Vulcan, and left Sickbay, the doors swooshing behind her. 

She looked at the bottle of pills in her hand and clenched it angrily. Something was wrong, and she knew it was more than simple exhaustion on her part. But her mind simply refused to pin it down, and that scared Hoshi more, really, than anything else that had happened today. She was not stupid, by any meaning of the word, and she did not like her mind playing tricks on her. And when her mind, her most reliable tool, could not be counted on, that meant very little else could either. 

Skipping dinner, Hoshi went to her quarters and accessed the communications logs. There had been a message, she was sure of it. What that message said, she did not know but she remembered that it had been important. Something about Jolas that the captain, and Malcolm, needed to know.... But what it was refused to surface. 

The logs were just as she remembered from this morning, no messages incoming or outgoing---wait! There had been an outgoing message.... She had sent one out to the Halparens---but it had stopped.... Hoshi sighed and smacked the desktop, furious that her mind seemed to be working against her. She scrolled through the communications logs from the rest of the day, finding nothing out of the ordinary until she reached a message received only ten minutes ago and not answered by the officer on duty. Looking over her shoulder, as if she expected someone to be standing there, she accessed the message. 

The Universal Translator had automatically translated it already, so Hoshi did not have to waste any time with that. A golden-skinned Halparen who looked vaguely familiar---she supposed he must be from the phantom message that morning---spoke quickly and urgently into the screen. 

"Enterprise, we demand that you respond! You are carrying a highly dangerous fugitive aboard your ship. Do not allow the device near your computer systems and if the fugitive requests any modifications to the thought-saver, refuse immediately. I repeat, the fugitive is highly dangerous. Please respond, Enterprise!" 

Hoshi jumped to her feet and swore so loudly that Crewman Hollis in the next room pounded on the wall. Shouting an apology, she sat back down and immediately sent a message back, routing it through the lesser-used channels. This was the thing she had forgotten, and now the memories came struggling back in bits and pieces. Telepathy, computer control---all these could be easily done through the thought-saver, and they had suspected none of it! 

No wonder those messages disappeared, she thought furiously as a new transmission, this one live, came through on the same little-used channel. The picture was fuzzy and the words blurred, but it worked well enough for her purposes. "Are you Ensign Sato?" said the Halparen on the screen. "I am Constable Hamisis. We believed Jolas to be dead, since we could find no trace of him." 

"Oh, he is most certainly not dead," Hoshi snapped, wishing dearly that she could wring Malcolm's neck. "I believe that he is taking over our computer systems and messing with our minds. Can you help us?" 

"We may be able to help---" The screen fuzzed and went blank. 

"Ah, the beautiful Ensign Sato," said a soft voice behind her. "Ever-resourceful, I see." 

Hoshi whirled around and stared in horror at the transparent golden figure standing in the middle of her room. She reached for the comm unit, memories of T'Pol's cry for help suddenly flooding back into her mind (she'd forgotten that, too), but it sparked and exploded with a puff of smoke just as her fingers touched it. Hoshi dropped back into her chair with a cry, her hand painfully singed. "What do you want?" she cried. 

"What I want at the moment is not possible," Jolas sighed. His golden fingers reached out to her cheek and ran slowly along her jaw. Hoshi shuddered, even though she could not actually feel his touch at all. 

"Get away from me," she said, leaning backwards away from his hand. 

He removed the offending appendage and smiled gently, looking sickeningly innocent. Hoshi nearly gagged at the sight. Her eyes swept across the room, but what could she do to hurt an intangible hologram? 

"I did not expect that it would be so difficult to fool your species," said Jolas, idly pacing back and forth before her. Hoshi sat frozen, her hands clutching the arms of the chair. "And in truth, it has not been. The hardest thing was changing the course so that the helmsman believed he was still on a different one." He stopped and grinned at her, sadistic and sneering. "Your security officer was difficult, but he was curious too, and stayed in close enough proximity that I could fool him completely." 

"What did you do to T'Pol?" Hoshi spat. Her head pounded, and she gripped the chair even harder. No doubt Jolas was doing the same thing to her that he had done to the Sub-commander. 

"The Vulcan? She would have felt my presence immediately," Jolas said smoothly. "I could not allow that to happen. She is alive, but she is unable to move or speak." He put bent down and looked directly into Hoshi's eyes, smiling still. "She hears everything, though. Her own mind is her prison, my dear Ensign Sato." He moved in closer still; Hoshi was frozen, unable to move, mind burning. "And so shall yours be, my intrepid little Hoshi." He touched her cheek again, and this time Hoshi felt cold fingers. A tear slipped from her eye and ran along the side of her nose. She could not move, could not cry out---Jolas laughed and took her chin in his hand, forcing her head backwards and up to his own. 

"I am most interested to discover the meaning of your human customs," he whispered. Hoshi closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks..... And then her skin tingled curiously, and she looked up to see Jolas' surprised face and the room all dissolving away into nothingness. 

She materialized again in thin air and fell to the floor, crying out as the hard tile met her elbows with a crunch. A golden face, reminiscent of Jolas but much more alien, swam before her eyes, hands lifting her from the floor and onto something softer. 

"The effects will wear off in a few minutes," said Constable Hamisis gently, beckoning over his shoulder to a waiting Halparen, who came forward. They moved away and spoke in low voices while Hoshi struggled to regain control of her muscles, tears still running down her face. After a few moments feeling spread through her limbs again and she began to relax, breathing in and out and desperately trying to stop crying. Hamisis came back in a few minutes. 

"See? He cannot reach you here," said the Constable. "Now, I want you to tell me everything you know about Jolas, and we will see what we can do to get your ship away from him." The alien face smiled down at her, very like the hologram of Jolas but with true kindness showing in his eyes. Hoshi managed a weak smile and with a deep breath told him everything that had happened, from finding the ship to Jolas' appearance in her quarters. 

And oh, was Malcolm going to be in trouble when she got back.... 

Malcolm, at that very moment, was pacing around the armory, trying to figure out why the targeting scanners refused to realign when all his calculations showed that they should be aligning perfectly. Jolas watched him meander back and forth, a bored look on the alien's face. 

"Perhaps, my friend, a rest and reevaluation of the problem might help?" suggested the golden alien. Reed turned and looked at him quizzically. 

"I suppose that would be a good idea," said Reed. "I don't understand it, though. Everything checks out normally---but it just won't align the way I want it to." He looked at the phase correlator in his hand and chuckled. "Trip's right, I am always working on these bloody things. A break's a good idea, Jolas." 

The alien nodded. "Let it settle," he said and then furrowed his brow, looking down quickly at the thought-saver, sitting on the console. "Would you mind adjusting the settings? One of the instruments was slightly damaged and it is not integrating as it should." 

"Neither of us are having much luck aligning things, eh?" said Reed as he examined the little machine where Jolas pointed. "Right here---aahh!" 

Without warning wires erupted from the machine and shot towards his neck and head. Reed threw himself backwards, but was too late---the wires yanked him towards the thought-saver and pulled him facedown onto the console. He struggled but his muscles refused to obey his commands and went limp. Jolas' face, shimmering golden, appeared next to his, scowling. 

"Your communications officer is a little too resourceful. I need full telepathic control of this ship immediately, and the only way I can do it is biologically. You should be pleased to know your brain, Lieutenant Reed, is absolutely essential in the next stage of my plan." 

Malcolm felt red-hot wires snaking into his skin and up through his neck. A scream built up in his mind until he thought he would explode, but his mouth refused to release the agony. Jolas' hand gripped his neck---he felt it, oh God, why did he feel a holographic hand?---and suddenly he was flying out of his body into along the wires, electricity crisping his skin and burning his face and hands. 

Everything blacked out for an instant. Then he felt a great thump and found himself staring at himself. 

"Enjoy eternity, Lieutenant Reed," said his own mouth. A little silver implant protruded form the side of his neck. "I don't need the thought-saver anymore. I have complete control over the ship"---his smile grew wider---"and now every person in it. Thank you, Lieutenant Reed." 

Malcolm looked down at his hands and found to his great surprise that he could see through them to the floor below. He tried to speak but found that his voice would not work. His body---or rather Jolas' body now---reached forward and detached the original little silver box from the mass of wires protruding from it. Reed looked around in dismay as Jolas walked out of the armory, pulling Malcolm-the-hologram along with him. 

They passed a few crewmen in the hallways, but despite Reed's exaggerated waves and gestures, no one seemed to see him. His own face smiled back at him, the corners of his mouth cruelly turned up into a malicious smirk. "Thank you again, Lieutenant," said Jolas in Reed's own softly accented voice, and tapped the controls to the F-Deck airlock. He tossed the thought-saver in, leering all the while, and as Reed stared in horror, sealed the airlock and then opened the outer hatch, sucking the little silver machine out into the blackness of space. 

Watch and learn, came Jolas' voice in Reed's mind as he tumbled away from Enterprise, helpless to do anything at all. Space was silent and cold, but the holographic body felt none of it as he tumbled away into nothingness. 

One last comment from Jolas reached his mind, making Malcolm scream silently into the emptiness around him: Enjoy eternity, Lieutenant. 

You're not dead---it's more of a chance than most people get.


	6. CHAPTER 6 - Long Memories

CHAPTER 6 - Long Memories 

Hoshi looked through the viewscreen at the small figure of Enterprise, traveling quickly through the stars. "Where is he taking the ship?" she asked, looking up at Constable Hamisis. 

His golden eyes tracked the ship's progress on sensors. "He is on a direct course for the colony in which he was sentenced, seven hundred cycles ago. I do not know what he wishes with it," he replied finally, speaking slowly as if this were something he did not want to tell the young ensign. 

"Revenge, maybe?" Hoshi suggested. 

"Perhaps. But it is no longer a penal colony. Several million Halparens live there," Hamisis said. "Our weapons will easily stop your ship, if he should attack the colony---but we must stop him before that happens, or all your friends will die." 

"Constable," said one of the lieutenants. "Their warp speed has increased. We have thirteen hours until he reaches Paleya Colony at present heading." 

"Your ship's maximum speed is a little under warp five, is it not?" Constable Hamisis asked Hoshi, who nodded. "Very well. We will board them and search out the thought-saver. We may be able to neutralize the fugitive. I feared not when we received your first message, but your ship is not as advanced as I had guessed." He turned and looked straight at her. "I will need you to go with us as a guide, since we do not know the layout of your ship." 

"Of course," Hoshi said, although the thought of Jolas made her shudder. "I wouldn't let you go without me." She looked back at Enterprise, silver against the deep black of the stars. "What are we going to do?" 

"You will have to wear this," said Hamisis, holding out a silver circlet with circuitry running along the edges. "It will shield you from the limited telepathy the thought-saver allows our race." He smiled grimly. "Not all of our people have that ability. Once the telepaths ruled over those who did not. That is why Jolas is a fugitive from the law; he follows the old ways. His terrorist cell kept a garrison of non-telepath slaves for years, culling them from the local population on the colony world and working them to death like animals, even though most telepaths would treat animals better than he did those poor people." Hamisis sighed. "There are still some who feel that non-telepaths should be treated as lesser beings." 

"That was seven hundred years ago?" Hoshi asked. 

"Change comes slowly to our people," said Hamisis. "It is partly the effect of using the thought-savers and clones to prolong life. Ideas which would have died in fifty years stay for five hundred." He had explained to her earlier that aspect of their society. "And it does not help that telepaths are rendered virtually immortal by the use of these devices. Non-telepaths lose synaptic functions after a few transfers; memories fade and personality disappears if the process is kept going. Any non-telepath would have been dead if no one had activated the transfer, but Jolas lasted for seven hundred cycles." 

"Lucky us," Hoshi said petulantly. 

Hamisis laughed. "Do not worry. He will spend the rest of eternity in that box, with safeguards taken so that he will not be able to trick anyone into releasing him again. We did not have these shields when he was apprehended last time." 

"Did you apprehend him last time?" Hoshi asked. 

Hamisis looked startled. "Me personally? Even if I had been born then, I would now not be alive to tell the tale, Ensign. I am not a telepath. My years would be at most five hundred, if even that much. No, but the memories are long in my people, and we know what Jolas is capable of doing. We do not forget a threat." 

Hoshi looked down at the silver circlet in her hands. "Fortunately for us," she said. "Thank you for your help." 

"Oh, it's not for your sake that we are helping. Jolas is a criminal many hundreds of times over," said Hamisis, squinting at the viewscreen. "But we do not kill innocent bystanders. Your friend did not know what he was picking up when he took the thought-saver from the planet, and in a way it is a relief to be able to close the casebook on this one." 

She nodded and put the silver circlet on her head, dropping it down low over her temples. "Well, when do we get started?" 

Hamisis smiled at the young ensign. "We get started right now," he said. 

They transported onto F-Deck, near the armory. Hoshi, dwarfed by the company of tall Halparens, bit her lip with nervousness as she beckoned them forward. The ship seemed oddly quiet, and no crewmen passed them in the halls. She didn't quite mind this, not certain of what she would say to explain why she was leading five aliens around the corridors. 

"Here's where Jolas' thought-saver is being kept," she said in a low voice to Hamisis, who nodded and carefully pressed the panel to open the door. As it swished open with a low hiss, they quietly peeked past the frame and then slipped into the dim armory, weapons at the ready. 

Hoshi pointed to the console, where a mass of silver wires sprouted, glowing where they fed into the computer. Hamisis dug through them, hand encased in a heavy steel-cloth glove, and turned to her with a scowl. "It's not there," he said. 

"It's not there?" Hoshi pushed her way past the other Halparens and looked into the tangle of wire. "It's not there!" 

"Are you sure no one moved it?' asked Thatmisit, Hamisil's second-in-command. 

"I don't know if anyone would," said Hoshi. "Maybe Malcolm. Jolas had him pretty well brainwashed. He would probably do anything Jolas asked of him." 

Hamisil and his officers exchanged a glance. "If the thought-saver is gone, but the computer links are still working, we may have a bigger problem than we thought," said Thatmisit finally, resting her rifle against her shoulder. 

"What does that mean?" asked Hoshi, glancing at the wires. 

"That means Jolas may have taken one of your people as a host. Telepathy is not hampered by biological circuitry the way it is in the thought-saver." 

"Wonderful," said Hoshi. 

"Wonderful indeed," said a voice from the doorway. 

"Major Hayes!" Hoshi cried, turning around to find a phase pistol pointing straight at her head. "What's going on?" The rest of the MACOs and a few of Reed's security team stood behind them, all aiming weapons at the five Halparens and Hoshi. 

"I could ask you the same question, Ensign Sato," he growled. "I have orders to take you into custody. Please come with me to the brig. If you resist I will apply deadly force." 

"There is no need for that," Hamisis said, lowering his weapon. "We will go peacefully." As he set his rifle down on the floor, he tapped a control box on his wrist, and the armory dissolved around them. 

Thamisit shouted a curse as soon as they rematerialized inside the Halparens' ship. "Blast that double-crossing son of a blind mule!"---or at least that was how it translated through the Halparens' translator, making Hoshi wonder at the sophistication of the machine---"I knew he would do something to foul up our plans! I say let the ship run itself aground on the Paleya defense systems. They would make short work of that primitive rust bucket you call a ship!" 

"No!" Hoshi cried. "You can't let the whole crew just die! They didn't do a thing!" 

Thatmisit growled low in her throat, golden skin darkening to orange around her eyes. "Be glad you are still alive, at least, whelp," she said, words hissing out through her teeth. 

Hamisis put a hand between the two women, both glaring at each other with daggers in their eyes. He spoke to Thatmisit in their own language, switching off the translators. She growled at him but stepped back. 

"Please disregard my lieutenant," said the Constable. "Her family lost members in Jolas' purge. She has grown up with tales of the barbaric deaths they endured." 

The more Hoshi heard of the golden alien, the less she liked him. "I understand," she said, nodding to Thatmisit, who averted her eyes in anger. "But I cannot allow you to let my ship be destroyed just like that. Can't you just transport them onto this ship like you did me, so they'd be out of his thrall?" 

"If I could, I would," Hamisis said. "I have neither the resources nor the room, though. To completely release them, if he has indeed taken one of your crew's bodies as his own, we would have to outfit them all with the shielders. They are difficult to manufacture. We possess only ten, one for each member of the crew of this ship." 

Another of Hamisis' officers ran up at that moment. "Sir," he exclaimed, "the human vessel is hailing us!" 

"What? We're cloaked. How do they know we're here?" 

"We just transported onto the ship, we had to come from somewhere," said Hoshi, but Hamisis ignored her. 

"What does it say?" he asked. 

Captain Archer's voice filled the room. "Hostile ship. Cease following us, or I will be forced to open fire. I repeat, cease your pursuit or I will be forced to open fire." 

Hoshi shook her head. "He doesn't sound like himself. He sounds like he's reading from a script." 

"Do you really think he is acting on his own?" Thatmisit snapped at her. "Jolas' control extends over every aspect of your ship." 

Hamisis sighed. "Open a channel," he said to the communications officer. "Convict Jolas, there is no use pretending. We know you have taken control of the human ship Enterprise. Release your control at once and prepare to be boarded. Your sentence will be less harsh if you do not resist." 

"Filthy Normal. I would bathe your ship in blood had I the chance," said a silky-soft, mildly accented voice---Hoshi gasped and cut Hamisis off in mid-sentence as he started to reply. 

"Malcolm!" she cried. 

"Ah, so there you are, Ensign Sato," Jolas replied, speaking in Reed's voice. "I wondered where you had gotten to. Such a pity our little tryst was so rudely interrupted. I have changed since last time, though.... You'd hardly know me now." He laughed, sounding nothing at all like the stoic lieutenant. The sound rang through the silent Halparen ship, high and cold and cruel. 

Hoshi wanted to be sick; the bile rose in her throat and a rushing filled her ears. "You took his body," she said, forcing each word out. "What happened to the real Malcolm Reed?" 

"Oh, he's floating around somewhere," said Jolas, chuckling softly. 

"Where is he, you bastard?" screamed Hoshi. Hamisis laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and shook his head. She fell silent, biting her lip. Damn Malcolm Reed, why did he have to get himself into these situations? And this time he couldn't even blame it on Trip! 

"Your ship will not survive a direct attack," said Hamisis. "Release Enterprise at once and we will not fire on you. You will be removed from the human's body and will await sentencing on Halpar. It will be much better for you if you cooperate, telepath." 

Reed smiled, not his own tentative smile, but a malevolent leer, twisting his face into cruelty. "I will do nothing of the sort," he told the Constable. "There are many innocent people on board this ship, controlled by the power of my mind. Every shot you take, I will kill one of them. They are lining up at the airlock as we speak. You may be able to transport some of them to your filthy little ship, but not all. Oh, no, not all." 

Hoshi could not speak; the words caught in her throat. She looked at Hamisis and Thatmisit in terror, begging them silently not to let him kill her shipmates. 

Hamisis growled low in his throat and then shut off the communications channel with a hard knock to the console. "Curse him!" he swore, adding a few things in his own language that Hoshi did not precisely understand. Thatmisit spoke quietly to him in a low, comforting tone. 

But another idea had entered Hoshi's mind. Taking the silver circlet off of her head, she turned it around in her fingers and then tapped Hamisis on the shoulder. He turned to look at her, bemused. 

"Tell me, Constable," said Hoshi, "what would happen if you put this around the head of a telepath?"


	7. CHAPTER 7 - And Longer Punishments

CHAPTER 7 - And Longer Punishments 

They teleported onto the bridge itself, shimmering into existence before the surprisingly complacent eyes of the captain (relegated to the armory station) and crew. Hamisis and Thatmisit and the rest of the away party leapt for the crewmen advancing on them; Hoshi, her own head firmly ensconced in a silver circlet, went straight for Reed, who lunged out of the captain's chair. 

She whipped out the weapon the Halparens had given her and fired; it caught Reed in the shoulder, and a smoking hole appeared in the fabric of his uniform, but he did not falter. 

"I can shut off the pain receptors in this body," said Jolas scornfully through Reed's lips. "I need not stay in this body, either. You can kill him and all it will do is force me to take over someone else's mind. Go ahead, my dear Hoshi, kill me!" 

She fired again and then as he stumbled forward, swung out with one foot and kicked him square in the chest. Reed's body flew backwards, cracking his head on the railing behind the captain's chair. With a lightning speed that Hoshi hadn't thought herself capable of, she leaped at him and swung the silver circlet from her own head onto Reed's short-cropped black. Jolas hissed at her and then fell back again, a look of surprise on his face. 

"I don't need to kill you," spat Hoshi in disgust. She leveled the pistol at him and nodded for him to stand up. He did so, slowly, and as he stood, tried to whip his hands up to the circlet around his head. 

Hoshi shot him again and he toppled backwards onto the floor, completely unconscious. 

"Sorry, Malcolm," she said calmly, and then turned around to face the rest of the bridge crew and the Halparens. Hamisis 

"Did you just shoot Malcolm?" asked Archer in an incredulous voice. 

No, I shot someone else, duh. "Yes," said Hoshi. "But there are some circumstances that I need to explain, sir." 

Archer looked at the Halparens and then back at Reed's unconscious form sprawled on the floor. "Good," he said. "I'd hate to think you just shot him for no reason at all." He stared at them all again. "Does anyone else have a really, really bad headache?" Hoshi rolled her eyes. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder and guided him to the captain's chair, where he sat and watched the ensuing flurry of activity with a very dazed expression. 

The Halparens wasted no time. They removed Malcolm from the floor and flung him over Hamisis' broad shoulders. "I would advise that you remain on your ship, Ensign Sato," said Thatmisit. "Your crewmates will need assistance." And with that vague pronouncement, they shimmered into nothingness. 

"Okay, then," Hoshi muttered, staring at the bridge crew. "Um... I'll go find the doctor. You all stay here until I get back. Try not to crash the ship." 

"Okay," said Travis breezily as she headed for the turbolift. "How do I not crash the ship again?" 

Hoshi's exasperated sigh echoed up the turbolift shaft. 

"He won't tell you where the thought-saver is?" Hoshi burst out. 

"It's got to be somewhere on the ship, Hoshi," said Captain Archer under his breath. Four hours and a few hyposprays later, everyone on the ship had been returned to normal, including Sub-commander T'Pol. The Vulcan had already resumed her customary position on the bridge (albeit with Dr. Phlox hovering around her). 

"He merely repeats that it is gone forever," said Hamisis wearily. "I have tried everything I can think of." The golden face crinkled with concern, magnified ten times by the large viewscreen. 

"Hit him," spat Hoshi. "Good and hard." 

"Ensign, I doubt torture will elicit any response," said T'Pol. 

"It is not on your ship," said Hamisis. "We have scanned for it repeatedly. Your ship's emissions are not powerful enough to block our sensors, either. He has hidden it somewhere... or destroyed it." 

None of the Enterprise crew responded. Hoshi shuddered and turned away from the viewscreen. "However," Hamisis continued, "if Jolas did destroy it, the pieces would still be emitting a very distinctive signal that we could pick up from all over the sector. I doubt this is the case, since no such signal is being detected." 

"Can you find it if you scan our course?" said the captain hopefully. 

"Unfortunately, we do not have time to scan your entire course," said Hamisis. "We cannot delay in bringing the criminal to trial. If you manage to locate the thought-saver we will transfer Lieutenant Reed's consciousness back into his body, of course." 

"Wait a minute," said Archer. "You are not taking my crewman with you." 

"At the moment, Captain, he is no longer your crewman," Hamisis said sadly. "I must report back to my superiors. I am sorry for your loss." He gestured to one of his officers and spoke in Halparen before turning back to the screen. "I am sending you the coordinates of the colony where Jolas will be held and executed, and the parameters of the energy emitted by the thought-saver. You will have three days." 

"EXECUTED?" shouted Archer, face red with fury. The comm link shut off, though, and Hoshi could not reestablish it. Her hands shook and a cold chill crept up her spine. 

"Three days and two men die," said the captain, hitting the arm of his chair. "Did you get those coordinates and scanning parameters?" he barked at Hoshi. She nodded, not trusting her voice right then. 

"Then get started retracing our steps. He's got to be out there somewhere." Archer pounded his fist again and then slumped into his chair, shaking his head. 

The stars whizzed by, eternally revolving around him, dark and silent and far away. Had he possessed eyes or a face any longer, Malcolm would have been ready to let the tears spill in a torrent down his cheeks. Hoshi was claustrophobic, this endless space would have suited her, but all he wanted were the bulkheads of a good strong ship around him once more. 

He could not control his motion. He could not make himself stop spinning with the thought-saver, though he knew Jolas had been able to do the same when he had carried the alien down the hallways of Enterprise. 

Not that it really matters, Reed screamed at himself. Bloody stars in each direction, nothing but bloody stars in any direction. He wanted to be sick, but the nerves and organs which would allow him to do that were gone. He was a shell, as empty as the space around him. 

Hoshi... she had done something that made Jolas angry... she had done something that caused him to have his body stolen and stuck in a little box, unable to move and unable to speak, unable to do anything but look into eternity... 

He felt no resentment, though. He was desperately worried about what that alien was doing to his ship... his crew... his friends... Hoshi. His mind screamed and he tried desperately to flail his arms in distress, but he couldn't feel it, even though he saw the holographic arms shining in front of his eyes. 

Maybe he would go crazy soon and forget that he, Malcolm, existed. Maybe he would go to sleep and never really wake up. Eternity, Jolas had said. Enjoy eternity. 

What was that bastard doing to his ship? How had he let it get this far? How had he let it go? 

Hoshi's face in the Mess Hall a few nights ago danced in his memory. Laughing, smiling, happy as they talked far into the night, far later than was proper. 

And he screamed so loud, in his own mind, that he felt the bonds of sanity break loose, he felt something rip inside his thoughts; Malcolm Reed screamed into eternity. 

The stars whirled around him, silent as always, and watched him with uncaring dignity. They did not hear his cries. 

Someone else did. 

She hadn't left her post for almost twenty-four hours. 

Archer had tried ordering her off the bridge once. Hoshi had staunchly refused, and instead of having her arrested and court-martialed, the captain gave in and let her stay. Someone had brought a plate of food from the mess hall, and it lay untouched on the edge of the console. She didn't know what it was, and she didn't know who had brought the plate to her. 

The captain had been in and out of the bridge since the departure of the Halparens. Half the time he spent standing over T'Pol's shoulder, looking desperately at the scans as if his eyes could see something that hers could not. The other half, he was shouting at the Halparens on the viewscreen, who all resolutely denied his request for Malcolm to be returned. 

"We will deliver the body of your crewman back to you," said the last one after Archer had treated her to a ten-minute diatribe on human loyalty and friendship and the despicable justice system of the Halparen outpost holding the trial. "It is far too dangerous to let Jolas loose again, however, and there is no guarantee that you will find your crewman's mental energies again." 

"Body! Nothing but the body!" Archer exploded when the viewscreen clicked off, and refused to speak to any more of them. Hamisis sent a message once to say they had arrived at the colony, but he would not look at it, so Hoshi merely saved it in the database and went back to scanning the subspace channels for any sign of Reed. 

She was tired now. Her eyes drooped closed, too heavy now to stay open, and she slumped a bit forward in her chair. The ship's engines droned in her ears, a comforting and familiar hum. 

Mustn't sleep... 

But her body had stayed up long past its endurance already, and almost without her consent her mind drifted off into oblivion. 

And then she heard it... 

Malcolm. 

Malcolm screaming! 

Hoshi bolted upright and, in one smooth movement that completely surprised even her, vaulted completely over her station, landing in front of a very startled Travis Mayweather. "Head that way," she cried, nearly pushing him out of his chair to point at the stellar charts displayed on the pilot's station. 

"What? Why?" said Travis, his face utterly dumbfounded. 

"Just do it!" Hoshi cried. She heard Reed's agonized yells in her mind and dimly heard her own name among the static. It grew louder as Mayweather, with a shrug, put the new heading into the computer. For a few moments the bridge was silent around her, the tapping of Mayweather's hands on the console the only sound in the room. 

Sub-commander T'Pol gave a very un-Vulcan-like start of surprise. "Scanners detecting readings along specified parameters," she said with a raised eyebrow. "Thought-saver detected." 

"Call Trip and tell him to meet me at the transporter," said Hoshi breathlessly. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a voice say insubordination, you idiot, but she didn't care. "Tell the Halparens that we found him and don't kill Jolas yet!" 

T'Pol said something in reply but Hoshi was too busy tearing into the turbolift to respond. She got to the transporter nearly five minutes before Trip and was anxiously trying to activate herself when he came running down the corridor. 

"Sorry, Hoshi, Captain just kept talking," he said, running a hand through his hair so it stuck on end. "Let's get our boy back in here where he belongs, all right?" 

"Stop talking and do it!" Hoshi shrilled, the screaming in her head almost too loud to bear. Tucker grinned. 

"Anxious, are we? What's going on between you two?" 

Hoshi gave him a dirty look as the transporter buzzed and a little silver box appeared on the pad. 

"Where's Malcolm?" she cried, leaning forward and picking it up. She tapped on the top, as Reed had done with Jolas, and a silvery light whooshed out of the side. Malcolm stood there, but he did not speak. His arms waved frantically and the look of relief on his face was enough to tell them exactly what he wanted to say. 

"Just hold on, Malcolm, we'll get you back to your body," said Trip softly as he took the silver thought-saver from Hoshi. 

Hoshi was way ahead of them both---she was already shouting into the comm unit on the wall. "We got him, Captain! We got him!" 

"You heard me all that way," murmured Malcolm softly, his hand clutching hers. "I don't know how but you did." 

Hoshi's head was on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter how," she whispered back. 

He smiled and they stayed like that for a few minutes, silent and just relieved that everything was over at last. The hunt for the Xindi would go on, the Expanse would go on, but Jolas was gone. 

"Hoshi," said Malcolm, his voice muffled by her hair. 

"Mmm?" 

"Guess what I learned from all of this." 

"What?" 

"I'm never touching any skeletons ever again." 

Hoshi snorted. 

"Malcolm Reed, in anyone else that would be pure common sense!" she retorted, sitting up straight in mock indignation. "Idiot! Hello! Dead bodies...no touching!" 

He looked up at her, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes. "I learned something else from this, love," he said softly, softly squeezing her hand. 

"What was that?" Hoshi said, blushing a little as he leaned closer to her. 

He didn't need to answer in words. 

~the end~


End file.
